


The Nursery on a Hill

by Zaxal



Series: Lambs To The Slaughter: A Good Omens Reverse AU [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Manipulation, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24060259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal
Summary: This was her nursery. For as long as she was able, she would encourage things to grow.Or:Post-Ark-And-Flood, the angel Corvai has to justify her decision to save a few surplus humans to her boss, preferably without saying anything good about the demon with whom she spent forty days and nights.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Lambs To The Slaughter: A Good Omens Reverse AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735759
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36
Collections: Good Omens Celebration





	The Nursery on a Hill

**Author's Note:**

> For the Good Omens Celebration 2020 Day 7 Prompt: Alternate Universe

### 3004 BC

“Y’know…” Corvai ventured, dared, aware that his voice was too soft, that he had surrendered any and all authority forty days ago when he had stepped into the trap laid for him. “I don’t think I ever got your name.”

The demon’s eyes were trained downward. Water lapped at the edge of the land; the receding flood carried the last of the world that had been destroyed. He looked… smaller somehow than he had on the Ark or before the flood. Corvai had thought of that conversation endlessly, how massive, how threatening the demon had seemed, sharp edges hidden in the curve of his smile and the crushing, relentless gravity of a black hole tucked in the center of every word.

Godfather of Murder, he had named himself. He had admitted it. Corvai tried to hold onto it as it was much easier than the nebulous idea of the eternal, hereditary Enemy. He had led the the sword to Cain’s hand, had nurtured hatred to his heart, had _laughed_ at humanity’s loss of its youngest child.

He had also sat among eleven sleeping children on the Ark and accepted Corvai’s call for a ceasefire.

A name was the least of his concerns, but it was impossible to ask the question Corvai wanted to. He couldn’t ask who the demon was in a way that mattered. He couldn’t know the weave of the demon’s soul, the intent behind the almost-gentle way he said ‘angel’, who he had been in Heaven, who he was now.

A name would have to be enough.

Without looking at him, the demon declared, “I should go report in before anyone notices how long I’ve been gone.”

Corvai’s stomach dropped through the floor. He _couldn’t_. Except, damn him, he _would_.

Then, the demon glanced up at him, with eyes as bright as a clear sky and pupils that were forced into circles. A stray curl of white fell across his forehead, caught, twisting, in the breeze, and he _smiled_ in a way that lacked any real malice. “Be seeing you, Corvai.”

“Wait—!”

He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. If anything, asking only ensured that he left. Reality twisted around him, and in a strange flicker, the demon was gone.

Corvai cast out with his power, hoping to find the demon stowed away on the Ark or hidden in the next continent over, somewhere where Corvai could reasonably follow even if it meant leaving the humans alone for a day or two.

Selfish. He was being selfish. And curious — didn’t he know better by now?

Corvai combed his fingers back through his hair, swearing under his breath and then apologizing just as quickly with a brief glance upward as if expecting an official reprimand for that alone.

It was almost funny that he was worried about words no one could have reasonably heard. When Heaven found out about the children he’d saved, he was _fucked_.

He couldn’t feel the demon anymore. Corvai tried to think of that as a good thing.

### 3003 BC

There was a tranquil hillside several days’ walk from where the Ark had finally beached. The wind rushed over the tall, green grass which rose and fell like waves before crashing into the side of a building made entirely out of smooth, dried clay. A miracle of architecture that had, one day, simply sprouted out of the ground.

A nearby orchard waved in the breeze, arranged in careful chaos and always bearing fruits despite the season. The shade-dappled ground was sacred, safe. No predators dared to venture beneath the heavy boughs nor anywhere _near_ the eleven children who were often found beneath them.

At first, she had been careful with miracles. Every burst of divine power was met with a skittering glance skyward, an expectation that was never met. They had lived out of the Ark, in the shadow of the tragedy until finally she had given up and taken them away.

She was going to be reprimanded. The least she could do was bless her charges, their home, give them the greatest chance at survival before the Archangels came down to find out why Corvai hadn’t returned to Heaven.

It wasn’t her first time changing pronouns or slightly altering her form. It wouldn’t be the last. There were few freedoms of self expression given to angels, and Corvai could hardly fly off to make new stars. Her corporation had become the new canvas of sky. The splatter of freckles on her brown skin were arranged in artful constellations, and she chose how to exist from moment to moment.

Ashtoreth — the name chosen by the children, a word threaded with love and joy and thanks. She cherished it and them.

She greeted them with a warm smile, soft touches, creating a home while easing the sense of loss as she could. It was a heavy burden and one she shouldered gladly. She murmured to her trees, to the grass, to the earth, urging kindness and mercy as she did for the young humans.

This was her nursery. For as long as she was able, she would encourage things to grow.

She felt the change in the wind, a sudden tension like a storm brewing. A knot settled in the back of her throat. “Stay here,” she urged the children and silently encouraged her grove to protect them.

Corvai’s stomach twisted around itself, her vivid imagination placing a host of celestial entities on the other side of the house, standing on her familiar hillside and looking out over the remaining floodwaters where they carved new valleys and canyons. Some were faces she hadn’t seen since before the First War. Others were far more recent. She imagined in a brief flight of fancy a tangle of white-blond curls, the demon’s sturdy form, that teasing smile.

With a slow saunter, she rounded the house, on the far side from her charges, and an unwanted weight settled on her chest.

Gabriel stood before her, his hands clasped in front of him and a disapproving look on his face. Corvai did her best not to wince, but Gabriel was… imposing, now. He hadn’t been, once upon a time, but she had been a different angel, then. She almost hadn’t been an angel at all.

“Corvai,” he said with a sigh, disappointment evident from his tone, his slight grimace, the piercing look in his violet eyes. “I thought we talked about this. About the Great Plan? About obedience? Remember that?”

Corvai very much did. “We did, yeah.”

“But what do I find? Hm?” Gabriel spread his hands, gesturing with one to the house, towards the grove, and the other out into the empty world that was slowly being rebuilt from disaster. “I don’t know what to do with you, sunshine. All you had to do,” he chuckled humorlessly, “was _stand there_. Give a quick blessing to the Ark and to Noah, make sure that they got through the flood. Instead. _Instead_ , you took eleven humans on board with you. Eleven humans whose part in the Plan had come to an end. But, oh no, _Corvai_ decided that he knew better.”

“She,” Corvai corrected.

Gabriel stared at her for a moment, thrown absolutely off-guard both by having his rant interrupted and dismissed for something he saw as trivial. Corvai crossed her arms in front of her chest, lifting her head, daring him to challenge her on this. Shrinking wouldn’t help, wouldn’t convince Gabriel to take her seriously, and if she backed down now, he would never believe her.

The Archangel forced a smile, eyes crinkling at the corners, something very nearly kind (yet so far away) in his face even as he said, “She,” in a way that sounded judgmental and disbelieving. Everything Gabriel said sounded, on some level, judgmental. How he had been made to be God’s Messenger was absolutely beyond Corvai’s understanding. Yet another wonderful bit of ineffability.

A deep, stuttering breath caught in her lungs before she steeled herself. “I had to.”

Another laugh, bitter and dry. “You _had to_? Did the Metatron pass down a message to you without notice?”

“No,” Corvai began, but Gabriel cut her off before she could continue.

“No? Then, did God answer a prayer without notifying _any_ of the Archangels?”

The condescension was rankling, but Corvai kept her voice even. “No, They didn’t.”

Gabriel’s smile fell away, irritation twitching just beneath one of his eyes. “Of course They didn’t.”

Gabriel, either due to his nature as the Messenger or because he was a passive-aggressive asshole, tended to carry insinuations just under his words, an unspoken meaning that Corvai could hear as easily as if he’d said it aloud. This time, it was: « _Why would They talk to_ you _?_ »

Once upon a time, there had been the start of a rebellion. There had been so many unanswered questions crowding on Corvai’s tongue, spilling over. She hadn’t known to keep her emotions to herself, and holy water fell from her eyes as words that blazed with unfettered glory scattered from her lips, spinning endlessly outward, a litany of ‘why, why, why’.

 _“Do not ask,”_ They had said, a gentle command that had crumpled Corvai’s will in an instant.

Corvai knew. She knew that if she had asked again… Instead of ‘why’ had come ‘please’, and it had been her singular saving grace. The despair of being ignored, of standing on the precipice and not knowing which way to fall had consumed her.

Why would God talk to someone who talked back, who questioned, who lacked faith?

Her jaw twinged, tightening under the scrutiny, under the constant weight of her burden as the one who had needed forgiveness.

“I had to,” she said again, “‘cause there was a demon.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “A demon,” he repeated under his breath. “And?”

Corvai grimaced. Of course that wouldn’t be enough on its own. Luckily, she’d prepared for this. She’d worked with Gabriel for over a thousand years — she knew how to work around him. “He was going to kill them. Said they were doomed anyway, like— like he expected me to shove off and _let him_. The Ark was the safest place for them, and by the time he cleared out, it was too late. I’d have been killing them, not the flood.”

The ensuing silence was long and agonizing, but Gabriel finally sighed. His expression melted into a wide, blindingly-bright smile. “Which demon was it?”

Corvai struggled with the sudden hope that bloomed in her chest. Maybe the children would be allowed to live, maybe _this_ was part of the Plan, maybe she wouldn’t have to go over obedience and forgiveness _again_ — It made her eager to answer. “It was the one who tempted Cain.”

Gabriel’s smile, still in place, weakened slightly. “That you discorporated?”

“Yeah.” Then, helpfully, “Animal form’s a sheep.”

“A _sheep_?”

“Thought it was weird. Is it weird?”

“Most of the reports are reptiles, amphibians, and bugs.”

“Makes sense. S’a lot of bugs,” Corvai said, hoping to remain on Gabriel’s good side.

“And you’re sure?”

There it was again, hidden in the spaces between the words, unspoken but undeniably present: « _Are you lying? To_ me _?_ »

“Either I saw him transform, or I saw him switch places with a bitey sheep with very sharp teeth.”

Corvai couldn’t say what she wanted to and she couldn’t neatly hide it beneath the flow of her own tongue which was probably for the best if she didn’t want to tell an Archangel to go fuck himself, directly or not.

Gabriel’s smile twitched, forcefully held in place, and it was _such_ a petty thing to enjoy. Corvai swore to pray for forgiveness later. “How long until these humans can survive on their own?” His tone was even, formal, at odds with the irritation clearly digging beneath his skin.

“Years. Less than a decade, but not by much.”

A sigh, consideration. Gabriel turned his gaze outward, musing. “We could give them to Noah. They could serve him.”

Her nape prickled, memories of a conversation on the Ark rushing with the pulse in her ears: the damned demon, moving in ways a sheep shouldn’t be able to, crossing his forelegs in front of him to lay his head on his knobby knees. His eyes, bright and clear, met Corvai’s without hesitation, without flinching. He had murmured, too knowing: _“I’ll have wasted so much time up here if you wander off to let them be killed or worse.”_ Corvai, despite herself, believed that there was indeed something worse.

Weakly, she said, “They’re just kids.”

Coldly, “And?”

Corvai’s protestations crowded her throat, all the questions she couldn’t ask tying her tongue. She _couldn’t_ be caught doubting again.

“Please,” she breathed, her head bowed. It had saved her once over a millennium ago. Maybe it would work again. “I— I can take care of them. Easy. And it’s a few days’ walk to where Noah settled, less if I use a miracle or fly.” Gabriel said nothing, and the silence pressed heavily on her shoulders. Desperation clawed at her ribs, every breath like fire in her lungs. “I can look after both of them. Until they’re old enough, yeah? Noah. His sons’ kids are gonna need help continuing their bloodline, right? There’s those— those problems if the same family reproduces together.”

Gabriel gave a low, irate sigh. Then, finally, after a moment’s deliberation, “Eleven’s not a _lot_.”

Corvai lifted her eyes, just slightly tilting her head up, barely daring to hope. Gabriel mused, “The paperwork would be easy. Treat it like any other pre-approved miracle. No one would question it if it had my signature on it, no one would _escalate_. We don’t want that, do we?”

“No,” Corvai agreed quickly.

“We’ll keep it between us,” Gabriel said, smiling. “And you’ll just… owe me one. How’s that sound?”

Corvai didn’t hesitate. “Sounds great.”

After all, she reasoned, there wasn’t really anything Gabriel could ask of her that she could refuse anyway.

“Good,” he said but made no immediate move to leave. Corvai struggled with what he could possibly want, and Gabriel finally shook his head with a smile that was chillingly _fond_. “Maybe we need to have a talk about gratitude instead.”

“Nh— No, we— we don’t have to. Thanks.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows, prompting. Corvai swallowed around her nerves. “Thank you, Gabriel. Promise I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t.” He unfolded his wings, light gathering around him. “See you at your quarterly review.”

“Right. See you.”

Once Gabriel disappeared in a bright flash, Corvai could finally breathe again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my partner [Parker](https://transfemmbeatrice.tumblr.com/) for all that they've done both in developing this AU/fic and in enabling me to write it.
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://zaxal.tumblr.com/)!


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